Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt 4)

Prevlov walked to the bedroom door and cracked it. Then he turned and smiled indifferently to Marganin. "Now, if you will excuse me. You may let yourself out. Good day, Lieutenant."

Once outside, Marganin made his way around the rear of Prevlov's apartment building. The door to the garage was locked, so he glanced furtively up and down the alley and then tapped a side window with his fist until it splintered. Carefully, he picked out the pieces until his hand could grope inside and unlatch the lock. One more look down the alley and he pushed up the window, climbed the sill, and entered the garage.

A black American Ford sedan was parked next to Prevlov's orange Lancia. Quickly, Marganin searched both cars and memorized the numbers on the Ford's embassy license plate. To make it look like the work of a burglar, he removed the windshield wipers-the theft of which was a national pastime in the Soviet Union-and then unlocked the garage door from the inside and walked out.

He hurried back to the front of the building and he had only to wait three minutes for the next electric bus. He paid the driver and eased into a seat and stared out the window. Then he began to smile. It had been a most profitable morning.

The Sicilian Project was the furthest thing from his mind.

THE COLORADANS

August 1987

9

Mel Donner routinely checked the room for electronic eavesdropping equipment and set up the tape recorder. "This is a test for voice level." He spoke into the microphone without inflection. "One, two, three." He adjusted the controls for tone and volume, then nodded to Seagram.

"We're ready, Sid," Seagram said gently. "If it becomes tiring, just say so and we'll break off until tomorrow."

The hospital bed had been adjusted so that Sid Koplin sat nearly upright. The mineralogist appeared much improved since their last meeting. His color had returned and his eyes seemed bright. Only the bandage around his balding head showed any sign of injury. "I'll go until midnight," he said. "Anything to relieve the boredom. I hate hospitals. The nurses all have icy hands and the color on the goddamned TV is always changing."

Seagram grinned and laid the microphone in Koplin's lap. "Why don't you begin with your departure from Norway."

"Very uneventful," Koplin said. "The Norwegian fishing trawler Godhawn towed my sloop to within two hundred miles of Novaya Zemlya as planned. Then the captain fed the condemned man a hearty meal of roast reindeer with goat-cheese sauce, generously provided six quarts of aquavit, cast off the tow-hawser, and sent yours truly merrily on his way across the Barents Sea."

"Any weather problems?"

"None-your meteorological forecast held perfect. It was colder than a polar bear's left testicle, but I had fine sailing weather all the way." Koplin paused to scratch his nose. "That was a sweet little sloop your Norwegian friends fixed me up with. Was she saved?"

Seagram shook his head. "I'd have to check, but I'm certain it had to be destroyed. There was no way to take it on board the NUMA research vessel, and it couldn't be left to drift into the path of a Soviet ship. You understand."

Koplin nodded sadly. "Too bad. I became rather attached to her."

"Please continue," Seagram said.

"I raised the north island of Novaya Zemlya late in the afternoon of the second day. I had been at the helm for over forty hours, dozing off and on, and I began to find it impossible to keep my eyes open. Thank God for the aquavit. After a few swigs, my stomach was burning like an out-of-control forest fire and suddenly I was wide awake."

"You sighted no other boats?"

"None ever showed on the horizon," Koplin answered. Then he went on, "The coast proved to be a seemingly unending stretch of rocky cliffs. I saw no point in attempting a landing-it was beginning to get dark. So I turned out to sea, hove to, and sneaked a few hours sleep. In the morning I skirted the cliffs until I picked out a small sheltered cover and then went in on the auxiliary diesel."

"Did you use your boat for a base camp?"

"For the next twelve days. I made two, sometimes three field trips a day on cross-country skis, prospecting before returning for a hot meal and a good night's rest in a warm-"

"Up to now, you had seen no one?"

"I kept well clear of the Kelva missile station and the Kama security post. I saw no sign of the Russians until the final day of the mission."

"How were you discovered?"

"A Russian soldier on patrol his dog must have crossed my trail and picked up my scent. Small wonder. I hadn't bathed in almost three weeks."

Seagram dropped a smile. Donner picked up the questioning more coldly, aggressively "Let's get back to your field trips. What did you find?"

"I couldn't cover the whole island on cross-country skis, so I concentrated on the promising areas that had been pinpointed by the satellite computer printouts." He stared at the ceiling. "The north island; the outer continuation of the Ural and Yugorski mountain chains, a few rolling plains, plateaus, and mountains-most of which are under a permanent ice sheet. Violent winds much of the time. The chill factor is murderous. I found no vegetation other than some rock lichen. If there were any warm-blooded animals, they kept to themselves."

"Let's stick to the prospecting," Donner said, "and save the travel lecture for another time."